


Idle Hands

by GrayJay



Series: Idle Hands [1]
Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Knitting, everybody knits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-04
Updated: 2015-08-04
Packaged: 2018-04-12 23:52:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4499625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrayJay/pseuds/GrayJay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Matt can’t keep his hands still: they dart and grope and worry at the edges of his sheet, and nothing he tries keeps them quiet. It’s like all the panic he’s pushing out of his head is squeezing through his fingertips. He picks at his cuticles until they bleed; rubs the hem of his shirt until it’s satin-smooth; pulls two IV lines out in his sleep, because even unconscious, even through the haze of drugs they’ve had him on while he’s in and out of surgery, his fingers keep working, reaching for something he can’t quite grasp.</em>
</p><p>Matt, knitting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Idle Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/3230.html?thread=7282334#cmt7282334
> 
> Comics/TV canon-agnostic; uncharacteristically (and literally) fluffy.

1.  
“When we can see, we prioritize visual information,” Matt’s occupational therapist tells him. Her name is Amy, and when Matt tells her she smells like plants, she laughs and tells him that she grows tomatoes on her windowsill. “We stop paying attention to what our other senses tell us.” She’s here to teach him how to notice things, she says: how to hear and feel the world he’s used to seeing.

“It’s too much,” Matt tells her. “I can’t tell what’s--I can hear _everything_.” As if on cue, someone slams a door, and he can’t stop himself from wincing. He wonders if this is what it’s like for everyone who goes blind, the continuous onslaught of taste and texture and sound.

Everything is too loud, and too big, and Matt can’t keep his hands still: they dart and grope and worry at the edges of his sheet, and nothing he tries keeps them quiet. It’s like all the panic he’s pushing out of his head is squeezing through his fingertips. He picks at his cuticles until they bleed; rubs the hem of his shirt until it’s satin-smooth; pulls two IV lines out in his sleep, because even unconscious, even through the haze of drugs they’ve had him on while he’s in and out of surgery, his fingers keep working, reaching for something he can’t quite grasp.

Everyone else tells Matt that he’s scared or confused, that it’s the pain from his eyes--which hurt, yeah, but Matt’s not _stupid_ , he knows the difference--or he’s disoriented from the hospital and the drugs and not being able to see. Amy asks him what he notices, talks about ways to pick out the useful information. Amy teaches him to feel his way around the room, how to count steps and pay attention to the space around him; and it helps, even when it’s embarrassing and frustrating because he’s too old to be fumbling buttons and knotting shoelaces like a kindergartener. He listens to her talk to his dad, using words like “sensory integration” and “adaptation,” and tears a nail halfway off picking at the edge of the bed frame.

2.  
“I don’t get why I have to do this,” Matt tells Amy. “It’s not like I could knit before.”

“Lucky you,” says Amy. “You get to learn something new today.”

He listens while she casts the yarn on, to the steady, rhythmic click and slide as she knits a row. “Knitting is like meditation,” she tells him. “Rhythmic. Soothing. It’s like watching the water or listening to white noise, but for your hands--something to focus on without taking too much of your attention.”

She knits the next row with him, her hands over his. Matt wonders if they teach occupational therapists how to do that in school, how to guide someone’s hands without pushing or locking them in. Maybe there’s a class where they take turns.

“Okay,” she says, voice bright. “Your turn.”

It’s not easy, no matter what she says. It’s _awful_ \--too much to keep track of, and he pulls the yarn too tight and loses stitches, and everything is tangled; and Matt finally drops the needles in frustration and balls up his hands in his pajama pockets.

“It’s okay,” says Amy. “It’s a steep learning curve. Let’s try another row together.” She waits for his hands to come out of his pockets--fingers flexing and reaching like they have a life of their own--and covers them with hers again, steering, correcting, but letting him take the lead. Matt bites his lip, _focuses_ , feels the yarn and the needles under his fingers. He drops three stitches, but he finishes the row, and knits the next by himself.

Matt doesn’t even notice Amy talking until she puts a hand on his shoulder. “Want to do a few minutes of navigation?” she repeats. Matt shakes his head, concentrates on getting the yarn through the loop. “You want to keep knitting?” Matt nods. By the end of their hour, he’s almost got a full square, and he’s starting to work out how to hold the yarn so he can pick it up with the needle instead of wrapping it painstakingly around.

“Time to go,” Amy says. Matt finishes the row and runs his fingers along the stitches, feels them gradually grow even along the length of the almost-a-square. Rolls it up as carefully as he can, and squeezes, reluctant to let go. Amy must notice, because she asks, “Do you want to keep that?” Matt bites his lip, nods incrementally. “Okay,” says Amy, and he can hear her heartbeat pick up in surprise when he hugs her.

When he gets back to his room, something feels different, off. It’s not until he’s falling asleep that Matt realizes that his hands are finally quiet.

3.  
“What’s this?” Dad asks, fingering the ragged potholder on the nightstand--Matt’s first finished square.

Matt feels his face get hot. He’d meant to put it away, didn’t want his dad to know. “It’s, um. O.T.? She says it’s good for--sensory? Um. Integration? And tactile, um--whatever? And learning to do things I haven’t done before, even if I can’t--” He breaks off. It’s still hard to say it out loud, what he can’t do anymore.

“You made this, Matty?” Dad sounds surprised.

Matt nods. “She said I could keep--” he fumbles with the drawer and pulls out the scarf he’s halfway through. “If it’s okay.”

The scars and calluses of Dad’s fingers rasp over the scarf. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

Matt shrugs. “I don’t know. Knitting. It’s weird. Girly.”

Jack snorts. “You a girl?”

“No, sir,” says Matt.

“Well, then,” says Jack. “Don’t see a damn thing girly about it.” He fingers the edge of the scarf. “You really did all of this?”

“Yeah,” says Matt. He spreads the scarf across his lap, points: “I dropped a lot at first, but I’m getting better. It looks messy because it’s all different, like the rolled up part is stockinette, and this one is all knit-one-purl-one, and this one’s popcorn. You have to count, but it’s not too hard.” He’s getting faster--at everything, now--and when they’ve got a few extra minutes at the end of a session, Amy teaches him new stitches. Matt can walk his fingers along the length of the scarf and feel a catalogue of everything he’s learned.

“That’s pretty fancy,” says Jack, and Matt can hear pride in his voice. There’s something else, too, something he hasn’t heard in a while, but he thinks it might be hope.

4.  
Matt has never met Mrs. W., but he can hear the soft clack of her needles from down the hall, so one day after school, he finally, hesitantly, knocks on her door.

He can hear her heartbeat race, then settle as she looks through the peephole and sees that it’s just the blind kid from down the hall. The door opens a crack. “Can I help you?”

“Um,” says Matt. “I’m, um--”

She cuts him off. “Jack’s boy. I seen you on the news.”

“Um, yeah,” he says. He hates getting recognized. It seems so unfair--that people he’s never even met know who he is. That they think they know him. “Matt. I, um, someone said you knit?”

“Mmhm,” she says, waiting.

Matt’s knuckles tighten, one hand around the handle of his cane, the other balled in his pocket. He hates this--asking for help--but he’s tried figuring it out himself, and all he has to show for it is one mangled mess after another. “Can you--I can do scarves and hats, and I know a bunch of stitches, but I can’t work out--I mean, I know it’s basically like hats, right? In a circle? But I can’t figure out the thumb, and--”

“Get to the point before you hurt yourself.”

“Oh,” says Matt. “Yeah. Sorry. Um. I was wondering if you, um, know mittens? If you could teach me?”

“Mittens.” Mrs. W.’s voice is dry. “Your dad know about this?”

Matt tightens the fist in his pocket. “Not, um. Not specifically. I wanted it to be, um--for Christmas. His hands get--he can’t wear gloves, really. A lot of the time. And I thought--for when it gets cold, you know--” He trails off.

“You’re a good kid. Yeah, I teach you.” Her voice changes when she smiles.

She helps him pick out yarn, too; something heavy and soft. “Your dad got a favorite color?”

 _Red_ , Matt thinks. _So they can’t see the blood._ He pictures his dad’s knuckles, swollen and battered and scabbed. “Maybe blue,” he tells Mrs. W. “Dark blue.”

5.  
Matt’s listening back over a lecture, halfway through a hat, when Foggy walks in.

“Matt!” Foggy’s voice startles him out of torts, and Matt pulls off his headphones. “Oh, shit, you were studying. Sorry! I--”

And then Foggy catches a glimpse of Matt’s hands. “Oh, my god. _Matt._ You _knit_?!” The glee in Foggy’s voice means Matt’s probably in for a lifetime of teasing, until he hears the next words out of his roommate’s mouth: “You gotta teach me!”

“To--knit?” Matt asks, baffled. He knows there are people who do it for fun, but he still thinks of knitting as O.T., or maybe a fidget--something to keep his hands occupied and take the edge off the rest of the world.

“Yeah!” says Foggy, plunking down next to Matt on the bed. “Ladies love dudes who knit. _Everyone_ loves dudes who knit, because warm things are _awesome_.”

Matt laughs. “I don’t know if I’d be--I mean, I learned by touch, and I don’t really--I can’t follow patterns or anything.” He works them out by feel--by now, he can run his fingers along a sweater and work out the number of rows, the sequence of stitches--but he’s not going to tell Foggy that. “There’s, um, a yarn shop not too far from campus. I think they do classes?”

“Bummer,” says Foggy. He sounds genuinely crestfallen, and Matt feels like a jerk.

“I guess I could--I mean, I can try to teach you the basics?”

He tries to remember how Amy did it--holding her hands over his, firm but relaxed--but he can’t figure out how to slow the motions down, make them make sense to someone who can see, and after an hour of trying, even Foggy is forced to admit that Matt’s not much of a teacher.

Matt’s expecting him to give it up, but Foggy spends the next week looking up tutorials on YouTube, and on Friday, he informs Matt that they’re both signed up for the knit-a-thon someone’s put together for a local shelter.

6.  
“This one, or this one?” Foggy’s picking out yarn for something--a shawl for his mom, maybe, Matt hasn’t really been paying attention. Matt’s trailing around after him, touching everything and demanding to know which Foggy’s favorites are so he can double back and pick them up for the scarf he’s pretty sure Foggy’s already guessed he’s getting for Christmas.

Matt laughs. “I think you’re on your own for this one, buddy.”

“No!” says Foggy. “The texture, man! They’re both gorgeous, trust me.” Matt holds out a hand, and Foggy shoves two skeins in it. They’re both incredibly soft--one’s alpaca, Matt can tell from the smell. The other one feels like a wool-silk blend, fine and even, perfectly smooth, with no unpleasant satin rasp.

“This one,” says Matt, handing back the blend. “Definitely this one.” 

“Sweet,” says Foggy, and buys three skeins.

7.  
Matt drags Marci along to get the yarn for Foggy’s scarf--she thinks it’s hilarious that they knit for each other--and with her help, he settles on what Marci describes as a “respectably drab” green.

“You guys are so married,” she tells him, as he’s agonizing over the right color for the stripes.

“Jealous?” Matt shoots back. He’s never been entirely sure why she hangs out with them outside of whatever no-strings thing she and Foggy have going--the ice queen of Columbia and a couple dorks who knit each other scarves--but he genuinely likes her: she’s whip smart and brutally funny, and she never pulls punches.

“Of your domestic bliss? Gag me with a knitting needle.” She pushes a skein of yarn at him. “Here. Maroon.”

“Isn’t that going to look Christmasy? Red and green?”

“Maroon and olive, dork. Trust the girl who can actually see the colors.”

Matt shrugs and clenches his teeth, because of the things he can’t work around, color is the worst. He’s pretty certain he remembers red and still has a decent idea of blue, but there’s no way to tell how far off the rest have slid by now. Marci must realize she’s crossed a line, because she squeezes his elbow and says, “Sorry.”

Matt shrugs again. “It’s fine. Just frustrating.”

“Well,” says Marci. “Good thing my taste would be better even if you _could_ see. Get the maroon.”

8.  
“Holy shit!” says Foggy, when he opens the scarf. It’s only the 20th, but they’ve decided to do Christmas early, before Foggy has to head home. “This is gorgeous. It’s like--Matt! There are stripes! How did you do stripes? And a hat, what the hell, Murdock? I didn’t make you a hat. Damnit.”

“It’s just keeping track of which strand is where,” says Matt. “The hat’s not--I had extra, so. Are the colors okay? Marci picked them.”

“The colors are the _best_ ,” says Foggy. Matt can hear him putting them on over his pajamas. “They’re all--warm? I dunno. I fucking love them, man.”

“I wish I could see them on you,” Matt says, and then, because he didn’t mean for it to be the moodkiller it was, “I mean, I assume my handiwork is spectacular.”

Foggy laughs. “Flawless. I still don’t know how the hell you do that, buddy.” He hands Matt a package. “Fair warning: this is not gonna be up to your impossible standards.”

Matt tears the paper away, and ends up with a handful of impossibly soft wool-silk. “The yarn! I thought that was for your mom. Foggy, I--”

“It’s, um, blue,” says Foggy. “Dark blue. I know you usually stick to grayscale, but I figure this’ll go with any of that, and you need _something_ with actual color.”

“Yeah,” says Matt. “Dark blue. Good call.” He feels along the fabric--a tiny, tight rib knit; it must have taken forever, and despite Foggy’s disclaimer, the stitches are almost as even as Matt’s would have been. He runs his fingers along the length, and hears Foggy’s heart speed up as he gets close to an end.

“So, um, I wanted to--I’m not sure if it worked, but--” Foggy says, just as the pattern changes under Matt’s fingers. It’s not popcorn stitch, exactly, just a series of nubs, and Matt isn’t sure what he’s supposed to be feeling for, so it takes a few times across to recognize the grid.

“Oh, my god,” he says, and hears his voice crack. “Foggy. This is.” It’s his _name_ , knitted out in braille. Matt means to say _Thank you_ as he squeezes the scarf--so soft it’s like holding air--against his chest, but instead he bursts into tears.

“Hey,” says Foggy. “Hey. Buddy. Are you okay? Is it--I didn’t mean--” He’s cut off by Matt’s hug.

“No, Foggy,” Matt says into his shoulder, “It’s _perfect_.”


	2. Coda: Ghost of Stockinette Yet-to-Come, or, This One's for the Comic Fans

“I was gonna save this for Christmas,” says Foggy, “But I figured you could use it sooner rather than later.” Matt reaches up just in time to catch the package his partner has lobbed at his head.

“Aw, buddy, you shouldn’t have,” says Matt. He can’t help tearing up a little when he smells the wool through the wrapping paper and cardboard--after what he’s put Foggy through this year, he’s shocked that he’s still made the Foggy Nelson Christmas Knitting list. “What is it?”

“Plausible deniability,” says Foggy. There’s a catch to his voice, like he’s trying to suppress laughter.

Matt raises an eyebrow. “Can I open it?”

“Oh, yeah,” says Foggy. “Open away.”

It’s a sweater--Fair Isle, and the yarns are close enough in texture that it takes Matt a moment to find the switchovers. He traces the edges of the letters, reading aloud as he goes: “I-M-N-O-T--” and bursts out laughing when he hits the second line. “Franklin W. Nelson, _you did not_.”

“Merry Christmas, Daredevil,” says Foggy.


End file.
